THE GRASS IS GREEN IN THE FIELDS FOR YOU / est. 2019
short version:
The Grass is Green in the Fields for You (TGIGITFFY) is an independent publisher concerned with the unsung corners of sound and music culture, its participants, performance and visual culture. Releases shun exaggerated self-opinion instead favouring collaboration, community and conversation.
email: thegrassisgreeninthefieldsforu@gmail.com
location: Reading, UK
distribution:
via Public Knowledge Books
select titles are available at the following outlets:
Good Press, Glasgow
Burley Fisher Books, London
Cafe OTO, London
ICA Bookstore, London
Inga, Chicago
Jumbo Records, Leeds
London Centre for Book Arts, London
World of Echo, London
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long version:
A first iteration of The Grass is Green in the Fields for you was spoken of in September of 2017. It took physical form as an almost-monthly subscription service in January 2018. Subjects were not limited to sound-making but its artefacts celebrated the ways in which events, people and cultures become mythologised. It ripped off the rip offs and bootlegged the unbootleggable, using plagiarism as both method and matter.
Through the production of books, pamphlets, ephemera and memorabilia (in the canon of merchandising matter) TGIGITFFY (for short) began by asking - how do you know this t-shirt is a real t-shirt or someone’s idea of what the t-shirt should be and whose great idea was it anyway, if we even need to know. It lived to push lo-fi consumer production and antagonised the ways in which text and images travel. Editions disregarded the protective territory of what we or indeed ‘they’ permitted into the realm of representation.
As your editor has grown older and increasingly apprehensive, the skirting of copyright and a flippant disregard for ownership becomes problematic. The collaborative culture that was memorialised on the pages of each release felt abandoned; they were lacking the fostered relationships they discussed and so, a new approach and philosophy was employed. A regrouping and collecting of thoughts occurred. The name lives on, the objective replaced.
With its target now shifted, the press works on projects with sensitive measure, delivered at a slower pace and with a precise focus. The Grass is Green in the Fields for You will provide stories of pop music culture, they will be the ones we plaster across our bedroom gallery walls.
The catalogue embraces approachable means of mass-production exploiting their generous flaws and integrating low-technology detailing in inventive ways. The press holds the idealisms of its subject matter closely, carrying on the ethos of anyone-can-do-this-and-why-not.
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longest version:
To be updated periodically.
maybe an attempt at a history, this isn't the start but maybe a good place to begin...
The World's Worst Music Video was produced for the online book launch of 'The World's Worst: A Guide to The Portsmouth Sinfonia' edited by Christopher M. Reeves and Aaron Walker, published by Soberscove Press. This launch took place on 23 May 2020 and at the time encapsulated many of the ongoing interests which helped move TGIGITFFY along. I'll go back to the start...
Before TGIGITFFY was a very short project called Drowned Attempting to Embrace the Moon's Reflection in a River which referenced both the Chinese poet Li Bai, and in my own head, The Bluetones and their 1996 single Slight Return. An end, and a beginning. While this project did have three outputs (Jessica Higgins, Rebecca Wilcox, Owen Piper) it didn't survive much longer than this. Concerns shifted I guess, things moved onwards...
In 2017 I took part on a Glasgow festival called Open House Festival where people would have exhibitions in their homes. I divulged in an ongoing interest in popular indie music from the 80's and 90's and created a series of t-shirts and other works which considered Biff Bang Pow, The Laughing Apple and any band Alan McGee had been involved in. Shirts were displayed, traded and given away. The only thing to survive is the above flyer, ephemera...
Many more projects came and went... a series of publications and keychains which considered Britpop, its people, its lyrics. A Pulp fanzine which is very popular, and a package which collected writings on The La's, accompanied by a tape cassette culled from YouTube. All much fun...
At the start of 2018 I embarked upon a 12 month subscription and this was titled The Grass is Green in the Fields for You. For those interested, TGIGITFFY is a reference, or a line from, Flowers in the Sky, a song by The Revolving Paint Dream, another Alan McGee affiliated band. This 12 month period meant a lot of making, and almost brings thinking of the press up to date. Packages included writings on music, sound, fanzine culture and graphic design. Here we are, this is how we got here. The next bit will go a bit quicker...
Lots of music came next and came before... either by the way of standing over turntable at Mono or The Old Hairdresser's or staring and listening at home. This is the very first part of TGIGITFFY, with its own catalogue number TGIGITFFY-003, which you can listen to/download here. TGIGITFFY had begun, now to move on.
This brings us up to speed a little more but to fill in some catalogue number gaps. You'll see jumps and these were largely to radio. Every other month I was on the University of Glasgow radio station Subcity playing records, inviting guests, launching books. All of these were archived on the Subcity website, which seemed to collapse at a point... I put some on here, but this has many gaps. One day I'll archive them properly, I can see them on the computer here.
The second to last sound element before we move to some lightly annotated ephemera is TGIGITFFY—023, No One Will Ever Know, a C45 mix when I couldn’t make it up to the Subcity Studio one time. This is commemorative, a celebration, a memento. No songs are duplicated from previous editions, this is all ‘new’ fodder tying together and continuing some of the themes from FitS. For those new to the show, sit comfortably and enjoy a physical artefact with its accompanying hiss.
As 2022 drew to a close, a ‘best of’, an ‘AOTY’, a things I’ve been listening to was assembled and disseminated via the newsletter, here for you to enjoy.
Some more ephemeral outputs then, here lets go in a different order. ...they will be the ones we plaster across our bedroom gallery walls...more soon, but let me find them, did I give them all away... A free A4 zine given away via Good Press mail-order in 2020.
Adverts for TGIGITFFY which featured in the 2019 and 2020 issues of QQQ.
AND, last but not least, for now, some very short lived flyers from 2020, using references, influences and thinking in the moment.
